Background

The Commerce Commission has released its second Consumer Issues Report. The report identifies key issues and emerging risks that have the potential to affect consumers in New Zealand, and upcoming areas of focus for the Commerce Commission. The report is based on industry information and recent consumer complaints received by the Commission.

Key identified issues

Some of the key issues the Commerce Commission identified as having the greatest potential impact to consumers include:

Supermarket misrepresentations, which may cause low detriment to individuals but high cumulative detriment to consumers as a group;

Misrepresentation of country of origin labelling;

A disproportionate number of complaints are generated by a small number of traders (particularly for the telecommunications and domestic appliance retail industries);

The Commerce Commission uses the Consumer Issues Report to identify areas of focus for internal planning and priorities for the following year. 2015 marks the first year the Commission has released this report to the public at the time it was produced. The inaugural 2014 report was released in May 2015 under the Official Information Act.

The Commerce Commission’s report provides guidance and insight for businesses who deal with consumers about the issues that are likely to be addressed by the Commission in the near future.